Tariq Khan, CEO of Alliance Healthcare which runs a hospital and research center in Peshawar has revived the healthcare sector in Pakistan with innovative technologies that are not only improving lives of many but also generating revenues. It started in 2005 when a bunch of doctors formed Alliance Healthcare, initially to help people around them with advanced medical facilities. Majority of this group were working consultants in the hospital. Tariq Khan himself is a senior neurosurgeon. Started as a small setup with the, the hospital has now 34 partners and it has 250 beds with state-of-the-art facilities in every specialty.
It is the first project in the private sector for cancer treatment as well as for nuclear medicine in Khyber PakhtunKhwa. It facilitates adjoining areas of Afghanistan as well. Moreover, Alliance Healthcare is constructing a medical, nursing, and dental college along with a belt of five hundred hospitals. Earlier, Alliance Healthcare started an institute of excellence for paramedics also in KPK. Tariq Khan is currently in a process of developing new systems for Alliance Healthcare to pursue the status of University from provincial government and Higher Education Commission.
Alliance Healthcare has helped bridged the gap between healthcare and deployment of latest machinery and technological systems for saving lives. Now more organizations from private sector are approaching Alliance Healthcare and it certainly has set a new trend. Tariq Khan tells us about how his project uplifted quality of life in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
State-of-the-art technologies for cancer, thyroid, open heart and microscopic surgeries
We have developed our HMIS in-house and we have information systems which are running extremely well. Our entire database and processes are online including our patents’ reports, which are sent to the patients directly and also to our satellite connection centers. We provide remote access, which allows our patients to check out different reports like CT, MRIs while sitting at their homes.
In terms of machinery and equipment, we have latest magnetic resonance imaging technology and radiotherapy equipment, which is the linear accelerator and one of the best in practices. It’s even better than the one deployed in Shaukat Khanum Hospital at present. Nuclear medicine department at Alliance Healthcare has advanced technological equipment like the Gamma Camera, which performs all types of tests for cancer, thyroid and other diseases. In addition to stress-test facility for heart patients, we have all specialties in neurology, neurosurgery, cardiology, cardiac surgery, nephrology, urology and others. The operation theatres are well equipped with state-of-the-art technology for all kind of surgeries including open heart, endoscopic as well as microscopic surgeries.
Basic challenges
The most important thing for us was to try and get together a team of experts in every specialty right from the administration, human resource, finance and IT department. We were lucky that at least at a consultant level we had grouped very well known specialists who joined our hospital. We also succeeded in attracting people from Karachi, LHR as well as UK and US. Now we have a very good team and we have overcome lots of basic challenges.
Healthcare industry faces numerous challenges in Pakistan. It hinders the growth of the sector when it is always tough to get approvals of different departments from the government. Today we have a problem with radio isotopes because the whole country has shortage of isotopes, and this issue has not been addressed with a professional approach. We have been trying to start liver and renal transplant in this sector but because of the devolution of our 18th amendment, there is no provincial human transplant authority available to grant us permission. Basically, there is a lot of red-tapism involved and that has been our biggest problem.
What’s coming?
The horizon is opened up for a lot of young companies. Pakistan’s global impression is changing a lot for what the world comes to see on events like AllWorld. The entrepreneurs in Pakistan are very enthusiastic and there are a lot of smart companies coming up, which is definitely helping Pakistan’s tech industry. I’m very grateful to the team of AllWorld and IDG for promoting the entrepreneurial culture here in Pakistan. There should be more events like Allworld because it helped us network with professionals and we received remarkably a huge response from all over the world after showcasing our services at Allworld.
